Troppe Cose Non Dette, Mia Cara (rewrite)
by Zeopraxis
Summary: Five years after the events of Portal 2, Chell is put in an asylum for the mentally unstable, but one day, her life is turned dangerously upside down when scientists discover a young man in a large crater just outside of the city. Android!Wheatley. Rated T for some gore and mild language. Enjoy! (rewrite of the original)
1. Appena Fuori Della Citta

_**A.N.:**_

 _ **HELLO!**_

 **I have been looking back at some of your amazingly flattering reviews on Troppe Cose Non Dette, Mia Cara, and my heart was just inspired to rewrite it. I have grown so much as an author and a person and what I wrote does not reflect what I can really do.**

 **Thank you so much for reading!**

Chell's room was cold, as it always was. The mid-fall chill seeped through her cement walls and pricked the bare skin on her dark arms. The red numbers on her alarm clock read 3:00 am, but she hardly registered what they were blaring at her. She was focused only on the bright white full moon through the bars on her window.

Looking at it made her nauseous. It made her palms sweat and her mind race. She hated it, but its light never missed her eyes and she always found herself watching it as it moved slowly through the starry nights. And every night she had to convince herself that she was safe here, and that the _thing_ that made her shake was unable to hurt her. She promised herself that she would never have to see him again. She figured that promise was the only thing that kept her alive these past five years, and it would be only thing that would allow her to bare those that laid in the future.

She was tired. She knew she was always tired. Tired enough to feel it but never enough to actually sleep. But she settled herself into bed anyway. It was a droopy thing and it shuddered and squeaked when she sat on it. It was better than nothing, she convinced herself. She set her head on her pillow and studied the cracks in the ceiling before they faded from her view. She did not dream in the asylum.

()()()()()()

She woke up to loud, blaring sirens out her window and a hard knock on her door. Everything seemed to wake her up these days.

"Stay in your designated living areas," A low voice instructed, muffled through her metal door."Do not leave the building. Do not go outside."

Chell had never heard a warning like this before and the gravity of it made her skin crawl. She peered out the window, the flashing lights and sirens came from ambulances and police cars at the hospital across the street. Dozens of people crowded the streets and ran about as the doors of an ambulance burst open. Three people rushed out of it, all with guns and tasers at their waists. Strapped onto the gurney that they pulled out was man. He was thin but that was the only thing that Chell could make out from the third floor of the asylum. She didn't quite understand what the fuss over him was, but she watched anyway until everybody on the street had cleared, her insatiable curiosity winning her over. The sirens ceased and the lights flickered out and she set herself back in her rickety bed.

()()()()()()

"Diane, get me a clean operating room, immediately!" A dishevelled, brown haired man shouted as he rushed along side the gurney, his doctor's coat flapping behind him.

The world was a blur.

Everything seemed as though it was a thousand miles away and he was watching it all through a pair of binoculars. People were shouting at him to 'stay awake' or 'keep your eyes open', but all he wanted to do was sleep. Nothing they were yelling meant anything to him. The only thing he wanted was for the pain to stop. He wanted to be able to breathe without feeling as though his insides were tearing him into shreds.

He should be dead.

After being nearly ripped apart when he was flung back into Earth's atmosphere, he knew that it had to be some sort of miracle that he was still in one piece. He didn't believe in miracles.

The doctors pushed his body into a bright white room. They all fumbled around him, pulling open drawers and pressing buttons. Grabbing his face tightly, one of them slung a breathing mask around his face. Another doctor, a tall woman with an unkind face, took a sparkling clean scalpel to his bicep. He couldn't quite figure out why she did it. Maybe his arm was broken. But as she cut further and further he felt nothing. He figured it was his repair system focusing on other things that weren't his skin.

She stopped, the blade falling from her hand as she looked at his limb. He watched her back away from him, then look him straight in his half lidded eyes.

" _Oh my god_. He- " She stuttered, hitting her back against the wall.

"Doctor?" another person at the end of the room said with a concerned tone, "Is everything alright?"

The lady shook her head slowly and backed away from the body on the hospital bed.

"Diane... Whats wrong?" A young man rushed up to the woman's side. He looked down at the incision. There was no blood and nothing that looked remotely like bone.

"What-what is... Oh God." He stumbled over his words as he tried to make sense of what he was looking at. The woman reached over and turned a black dial on a large tank on the floor and in a matter of seconds, everything went dark.

()()()()()()

"No! I don't know what he is!" The doctor yelled, throwing her hands up in frustration. "Never, in all my years have I seen anything like him. He's- it's like he's not even human..."

"Maybe... maybe he isn't." A short, younger woman said quietly. Diane turned to the other woman and chuckled cynically.

"Impossible, Gretchen." She looked back at the man. "It has to be some kind of deformity or _something_." She said, her brows furrowing. Gretchen walked to the doctor who leaned defeatedly over her desk. "No, Diane, It's not impossible. Remember the kind of stuff Black-Mesa had? I mean, we have military androids, who's to say we haven't got some like him?" She pointed to the bruised body that laid silently on a hospital bed. All of the doctors agreed not to go any further until they understood him as much as they possibly could. So far they were all as confused as they had been the minute they found him. They locked him in a quarantine area and decided to keep him there.

"He's not like any Black-Mesa android I've ever seen." Diane said in a low voice. "He just looks so... so _human._.." A thick layer of glass separated the doctors from the man, and they both watched him intently. He was quiet and still as death. But a whirr began to echo through the hospital room. It grew into a deep groan and they could see the man's fingers twitch ever so slightly. It was the first thing he had done in nearly 24 hours and neither of them wanted to miss what was about to happen.

As the doctors moved closer to the glass, there was a shriek louder than anything either of them had ever heard. A sound that boarded just on human and bled into something else entirely opposite. Diane threw her hands over her ears and the younger doctor backed away, tripping over a table and falling to the floor. She got up almost immediately and ran over to a microphone pressed a button, and talked into it.

"Sir. We need you to calm down!" Her voice radiated out of speakers in the corners of the room. The man's scream faded down into a heavy set of confused yells and cries. His head darted around and he eventually looked at the doctors through the glass.

"Sir," She continued, "Can you follow my finger." She lifted up a finger and moved it around in circles and the man's brilliant blue eyes followed it's every move

"Good," She said. "Now, can you tell us your name?"


	2. Quello Che Ricorda

**A.N.**

 **Hello!**

 **This chapter is a few hundred words shorter than its original, which is something I predict will happen quite often. All of this is rewritten from scratch so some things have been added and other things have been removed completely.**

 **Also, my posting schedule from now on is every Sunday and every Thursday. Let's see if I can keep it up!**

 **Thank you so much for reading!**

He was silent. If he were to speak he feared he would never stop and say too much. So he kept his wide eyes fixed on the women as they kept theirs on him.

The short doctor leaned into the microphone. "Sir, will you please tell us your name?" Her voice echoed through the room and shook his titanium bones. Everything was amplified and even the near silent humming of the lights on the ceiling was overbearing. He remained unspeaking.

Gretchen shook her head and stepped away from the glass. Diane was watching intently from the corner with her arms folded over her chest.

"I don't know what to do, Diane." She huffed, chewing her lip. "He won't say anything."

Diane hummed thoughtfully. "Then go in there."

"Are you crazy?" Gretchen was not about to risk her life and walk into the same room as that _thing_.

Turning on her heel, Diane faced the thick grey door that stood between them and him. She punched in the four number code and with a heavy _click_ it came unlocked. "Then I'll do it."

Gretchen's hand flew out to grab the other doctor's shoulder."Di, please don't do this…"

"We need answers." Shaking the hand away, she stepped into the other room. The door flew shut behind her and all was silent.

The man sat on his bed, staring at her.

"Hello." She said calmly and took a step towards him. "Nobody is here to hurt you."

When she met him at the center of the room, she knelt down to face him. He recoiled at her proximity but she stayed put.

"Tell us why you're here." It was a calm demand and he knew exactly why he was here.

He needed to apologize.

It was the only thing he could think about when he was up there. For five years the only person on his mind was _her._ Chell. So when his systems foretold that he would reunite with Earth in the near future, he rehearsed over and over again in his head what he would say to her when they finally met again. However, he predicted that she would try to kill him if she ever saw him. He also predicted that he would let her. He would let her beat him until there was nothing left of him and she could finally be at peace knowing he was dead. But before she did, he promised himself that he would repent. All he needed to do was find her.

"Uh-" He began to speak, his voice trembling and cracking. "I have t-to find somebody…" He wrung his hands together and watched as the doctor furrowed her brows.

"Who?"

()()()()()()

Chell's' eyes were fixed on the trees outside the window. She watched as brown and red birds swooped from bare branch to bare branch with poise and liberty. They would often watch her back, landing on the windowsill and tilting their small heads as she smiled at them. She wondered what they saw happen inside the asylum. Did they see everything? Did they see how sane people lost their minds? Did they see those who already lost theirs plunge deeper into the dark? She wanted to understand what they tweeted at her from the trees. If they could keep secrets so well, she was tempted to tell them everything. There were hundreds of days that she was tempted to just speak everything in her heart to those simple animals, but she kept everything locked up. Telling her tale is what got her in here anyway so she hardly wanted to risk it.

"Chell." A woman's voice broke her focus. It was strange hearing her name on somebody's tongue other than her own. Turning in her chair she met the blue eyes of a short, round-faced woman flanked by two black-clad asylum guards.

Chell's voice was low. "That's me."

"Well, there is somebody who needs to speak with you," The woman started, folding her hands in front of her. Chell was becoming more suspicious with every passing second. "He told us that he needed to see you right away."

"Who?" Chell couldn't think of any other person she knew that was alive and lived outside of the asylum. And why was this woman so careful as she spoke? What wasn't she saying?

"I think he said that his name was Wheatley."

Chell's skin shook. Every hair on her body stood on end at the sound of his name.

 _No._


	3. Vecchi Amici

Something strange gripped Chell as she sat alone in the hospital. They put her the same kind of room they take a person to tell them that their loved ones died in a car crash. Something in the dull cream walls made her skin crawl. She wanted to be anywhere in the world but here, but the guards and the woman doctor forced her here. She protested, she punched and kicked and screamed, but out of fear of what that inhuman man would do they brought to this hospital against her will and best judgment. A low ache pounded through her head as she sorted through the thoughts that raced through her head. She decided that she wasn't quite afraid, but she was angry. She was furious. She was enraged at him for thinking that bringing her here by force would solve things between them? Chell was no doubt here to watch him apologize to her and she was no doubt never going accept it.

With her face in her hands, she sighed deep and tremulous. She felt a dangerous ocean rising up in her throat that, in her unrest, threatened to spill from her steel grey eyes. The door clicked open and she met an unfamiliar face.

"I'm Dr. Gretchen Broader," the woman said, holding her hand out for Chell to meet. She ignored it. The doctor dropped her hand and sat in the chair across from Chell. "I heard you put up quite a fight getting here. You gave my partner a black eye."

Chell did not speak, just scoffed and folded her arms.

Dr. Broader frowned. "You know, you're like him. You both don't talk much."  
"Don't compare me to him." Chell snapped. Her throat was raw from shouting as she was dragged from the asylum. "Ever."

"So you do know this," she paused. "person."

"Yes." She wanted to speak more but her words were caught in her throat. The only thing she wanted right now was to be laying in her bed- safe, warm, and away from all of this.

The doctor leaned back, clicked a pen, and wrote something down on her clipboard. "I can tell that you're angry." She said, not looking up. "But you're here because we need answers and he won't talk to us. He asked for you and he must know that you have something to say."  
"He is dangerous…"

"That is why we can't refuse to bring you here." Dr. Broaden's face hardened. "We were prepared to scour what's left of this world to find you. Luckily you were just across the street so we didn't need to. But we need you to cooperate."

Chell wasn't used to talking. The most she spoke these past five years was the day she told the authorities about her time in Aperture. She told them everything, hoping to gain justice for herself and the others trapped and killed there.

They referred her to a psychologist. Her psychologist called her delusional and dangerous. A month after she left Aperture, she was admitted to the mental institution. She vowed that she would never tell another soul about anything in her past. It was policy at the asylum that you were forbidden to ask another person why they were in there, but people still pried. She had gotten used to lying to people. "Schizophrenia." She would say. "A schizophrenic person doesn't admit that they have schizophrenia." They would reply. She wouldn't respond after that. She figured that nobody really knew why she was there. She never really understood why she was there either. But she knew that she was safe there, so she didn't protest. She was fed, clothed, and sheltered daily which was a better deal than living on the street. She was content and she was secure. Until now.

"I don't know what you want me to say," Chell argued. She had always been stubborn.

"Tell me why you're in the psychiatric hospital."  
"No."

Dr. Broaden pinched the bridge of her nose, frustrated. "Then at least tell me why he wants you here."

She wasn't going to say it. It was too much to think back on and too much recite coherently. "He wants to apologize to me." Was all she said.

Dr. Broaden wrote on her clipboard again. "Good, good." She said under her breath. "Why?"

"Ask him why. He would tell you." Chell said. Her chest was high, but she felt as though her bones were cracking under the weight of her worry. She wanted to yell and cry and she could feel a knot rise in her throat.

"Please, Chell." Dr. Broaden's voice changed. She spoke soft and calm, but as if she was begging. "Tell me what happened."

A tear carved its way down Chell's cheek. The simple prospect of telling that doctor what happened made her chest tight. She did everything to keep herself from vomiting. "A lot happened." She choked. "I know that he brought me here to apologize for it."

"That's what he said he wanted to do…"

There were three taps on the door.

"Come in." The doctor said, her eyes still locked onto Chell's.

A man stepped into the room and leaned down. Chell could hear him whisper something but she couldn't quite hear what it was. Dr. Broaden thanked him and he stepped out of the room.

"Come with me." She said.

()()()()()()

Wheatley shook. If he didn't see her, he was sure that his computers would run so fast they would catch fire. He had rehearsed nearly a thousand time what he would say when she came to see him, but every time he tried to think of it he would forget words and mess the whole thing up. He watched the glass window with bated breath. The doctors he had met thus far had been kind to him, although he suspected it was because they were afraid of him. They normally stayed in the observing room behind three inches of bulletproof glass, save for the time when Diane spoke to him face to face. That was the only human contact he had since he was found. He ached for at least some kind of reassuring touch from a kind human. Chell was kind, at least he remembered her being kind before he did what he did.

A light behind the window flickered, and three women stood side by side. One he recognized as Diane, the other he knew was a woman named Gretchen, and the other…

It was her.

Before Wheatley could stop himself, he stumbled off of his hospital bed. Tripping over his own legs, he fell onto the glass. Chell backed away from him, her hand covering her mouth. She turned her back for a moment, but with fire and fury turned back around. She screamed at him but he could hear nothing through the barrier. He could see white and pink scars on her arms and neck and he knew that he contributed to some of them. The thought of hurting her now made him feel sick. He stepped back and stood there, watching her rage as it electrified the air.

"I'm sorry." He said, knowing that she couldn't hear him. She stopped suddenly. Her hands fell to her sides and she slumped. Walking to the grey door that separated them, she pulled at the knob and pounded on it until one of the doctors met her there. Slamming against the wall, Chell threw the door open. She looked like something inhuman as she stood in the doorway. Her anger ruled over her like a black mass and it filtered through the white of the room.

"Chell. I'm-" She hit him. Her fist hit his metal cheekbone and she realized that it may have done her more harm than it did him. Her whole arm throbbed, but seeing him reel backward was a remedy for her pain.

He held his face with his trembling hands. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry-"

She hit him again, this time he fell onto the floor. He had so much to say but nothing seemed to be coming out right.

She kicked him in the stomach.

"P-please listen to me." He yelped as she kicked him again.

Her breaths were labored and she stood over him, her fists balled. "I know. I know that you're sorry." She hit him once more. She struck him until he stopped trying to apologize. He hugged himself and shook as she loomed over him.

She was not strong, and this was proof that she wasn't. But for the time being, she pleasured herself in his pain until a pair of arms pulled her from the hospital room. Yelling voices where echoing around her but she never once knew what they were saying to her.

She promised herself that after this moment, she would never see him again.

 _ **A.N:**_

 _ **Whoo! It feels nice to get back into the groove of writing something like this. Thank you all for reading! Also, please if any of you see anything that you feel could be improved or changed or something that doesn't make any sense then please let me know! Constructive criticism is always welcome. If anybody has any questions don't hesitate to ask.**_

 _ **~Zeo**_


	4. Rischo Di Incendio

_**A.N.:**_

 **Hello all! Sorry for not uploading for a week I've been so busy and didn't have the time to write. Hopefully, I can be on time from now on but no promises.**

Chell felt nothing as she was escorted back to the asylum. Nothing in her gut, nothing in her head. Nothing. Save for the ring of rage in her ears and the sense of a missed opportunity. She knows she could have done more and as she stands in her room and punches her concrete walls she imagines his face as the thing making her knuckles bleed. She doesn't feel the pain.

()()()()()()

The smell of smoke jolted Chell from her sleep. Her eyes burned when she opened them and when she took a breath she felt as though she was suffocating. She coughed and choked on the smoke-filled air Her entire room was in a thick grey haze and when she held up her hand in front of her face she could hardly see it. There had to be a fire somewhere because the heat of it made her sweat bullets. Loud sirens echoed through the building. Chell stood from her bed and frantically tugged at the door handle. It didn't budge. Her heart fell into her stomach. She remembered that when she came back, the guards locked the door from the outside. Four locks total. She knew she could break out if it was just one or two, but there was no hope with all four of them secured.

She panicked. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Jumping from the window was not an option. It was completely barred and if it weren't then the fall from the third floor to the cement would certainly kill her. Pacing in front of her bed, she figured that if she was going to die here then she had better make it as quick as possible. She gulped the air, taking the largest breaths that she could. What did she have to live for anyway? This place? Him? She was getting dizzy and the prospect of death wasn't as daunting as she expected it to be. In her disorientation, her foot caught the leg of the bed. She toppled to the floor, hitting her head on the floor with an ear-splitting _smack_.

Everything went black.

()()()()()()

Wheatley hated the sound of sirens. They reminded him of things he would rather forget.

Since all of the hospital staff came to the conclusion that he wasn't a threat to them, Wheatley was allowed to move around the grounds so long as he was supervised. The nurse assigned to him, Dan, was a stout man with an incredibly short attention span. He was kind, but he wouldn't even notice if the world split under him.

The sirens continued to blare ceaselessly outside. Wheatley turned to Dan.

¨What's happening out there?¨ He asked, his voice brimming with annoyance. He couldn't stand to hear that endless beeping.

The nurse shrugged. "No idea…"

Wheatley groaned and turned his attention to a window that looked out across the street. The street was darkened with snow and ash and he could see flashes of orange and white lick their way through the haze. Suddenly, like a bomb going on his chest, a realization dawned on him. Those flames came from the asylum. The asylum that housed Chell. He could see soot-stained people pacing on the street, but none of them were her.

He felt the urge to do something incredibly stupid.

"Hey," he started, wringing his thin hands and facing Dan who didn't even seem to register that Wheatley had left his side. "I'm going to leave, not for long though. I'll be back. Just don't tell anybody."

"What?"

"Exactly." Wheatley made his way towards the front doors, the burning building the only thing on his mind.

"Wait!" Dan called from behind him. "You're not allowed to leave without me!"

"I'll be right back buddy," Wheatley assured him, fake sincerity marking his tone.

"You're not allowed to leave though."

He turned on his heel and waved Dan off.

()()()()()()

Wheatley was met at the doors of the asylum by two firefighters. Just as he pushed past them, the reality of his decision hit him as hot as the fire around him. He was always one to act on impulse no matter how much he convinced himself that it instinct. But letting Chell die in here knowing that he could have done something to stop it wasn't something he would ever forgive himself for. He was nearly the death of her before, and he would be damned if he did it again.

He opened every door and plowed through those locked with only a few shoves. Nothing on the first floor. Nothing on the second floor. The smoke tainted his air filters and he took deep breaths, becoming more fatigued with each gulp. The third floor seemed empty until he got to the last room at the end of the hall. He could barely make out anything through the haze, but on the floor was a figure. He leaned closer and his stomach dropped. It was her. Her forehead was caked with blood and he couldn't see her breathing. Mustering his last bit of strength, he lifted her limp body from the cement floor and carried her out. He had no plan and no idea what he was doing, but he never did anyway.


	5. Non Stanno Facendo Così Bene

The city was behind him. Everything seemed to be behind him now. He figured that something wasn't quite working in the part of his programming that told him right from wrong. If it was he would have just turned her into the authorities and they would never have to see each other again. But instead, he carried her beyond the city limits, out into the sick and hungry fields and far from any safety.

He wasn't tired. He should be but he wasn't. Maybe it was his body giving him its final burst of energy before it was spent completely. Like adrenaline. But he was afraid. He was terrified. What if they were caught? What if they both died out here? Nobody goes out this far. Nobody would dare. But here they were and there didn't seem to be any kind of haven in sight.

()()()()()()

He doesn't remember falling asleep. But when he woke up in a daze on the dry dirt he felt utterly alone. Chell was gone. He stood up, frenzied and terrified, searching in the weeds and sandy soil as if she was some kind of bug that would be hiding there. He stood at the edge of a forest, thin dark trees standing tall and far apart. Maybe she went in there, but there was something that kept him from stepping through the threshold. Cowardice. Wheatley hit himself on the forehead. _You're an idiot._ He turned back around and faced the rest of the rotten wasteland. There was nothing out there that stood taller than a foot. Everything was dead and if it wasn't it was about to die. There was nowhere for Chell to go except into that miraculously alive forest.

"Aye!" A deep voice from behind him made Wheatley jump. "Put your hands up!" Oh god oh god he's been caught. They're going to… do something bad to him. He doesn't know what but it's gonna be bad. He was pushed to the ground and as he turned onto his back he was met with the barrel of a gun. Holding that gun was a man, tan and thin with a light beard. Not very intimidating but that gun made him seem like the scariest person in the world. He scanned Wheatley up and down and his eyes widened. He immediately put his gun down at his side and stepped away.

"No shit…" he muttered, looking at Wheatley in disbelief. "You're one of those guys."

Wheatley frowned. "I'm what?" Then he looked back at the gun. "You're not gonna kill me?"

"Hell no, I'm not gonna kill you." He said. He reached his hand out to Wheatley, pulling him off of the ground. "We've got a couple more like you back in town. Come on. I'm Logan, by the way." With that, the man started off into that dreadful forest and Wheatley followed him because he's stupid.

"What do you mean by one of 'those guys'?" Wheatley asked, but maybe he was afraid to hear the answer.

Logan looked back at him, "The Robots. The ones that are like people." He stopped and turned to meet Wheatley face to face. He stared at him, looking into his eyes and tracing the contours of his body. It was weird. "Where are you from?" The stranger asked.

"Aperture." The word made his tongue sting, like the feeling you get when you're about to vomit.

"The others are from there too." He turned back around and continued through the forest. There was a path trod into the dirt, snaking through the trees and over hills. As they reached the summit of one of those hills, houses and shacks rose from the thicket. But before they went any further, Logan stopped.

"They're going to try to tear you apart." He said, his voice low as he watched people move through the town.

"E-excuse me? What d'you mean they're going to…" He couldn't finish.

"People want metal. They want parts, especially parts from the ones like you. Keep your guard up." Logan trundled down the hill, but Wheatley was hesitant.

"You're sure that this is safe?" He called.

Logan waved him off. "Of course. These people respect me and if I try hard enough they won't go after you."

 _That's not very helpful_ he thought to himself, yet he followed Logan into the shantytown. He stuck close to him, trying to avoid the prying eyes of the townspeople that snaked ever closer to him. And despite how unsettling it was, Wheatley couldn't help but admire the hamlet. It was small but the people seemed to be doing well in their houses built from shipping containers and corrugated metal. He wondered if the authorities knew about this. He had no idea how far away from the city they were, so there was a high chance that this place was completely off anybody's radar. Logan led him to one of the buildings. He could hear people talking inside and when Logan opened the door, they were met with the faces of four other people.

"Here are the others," Logan said. They all just stared at him, like deer in headlights.

"Get him the fuck out of here." One of them said. Logan frowned and looked at Wheatley.

"Why? He's nice!" He tried to convince them. But they knew. They knew who he was. And Wheatley knew that they knew.

"Bullshit. You don't know him." Another one of them said. Wheatley couldn't meet their glares. Logan backed away, pulling Wheatley with him. He closed the door and groaned.

"What is that all about?" He asked. If Wheatley were to explain any of it to him, he would likely be thrown to the people so they could tear him apart.

So all he said was. "It's a long story." Logan nodded and looked at him with eyes so understanding that it knocked Wheatley off guard.

"Then you don't have to stay with them." He said. "You can stay with me. But I want to show you around first."

Wheatley nodded, but something still tugged at him. Chell was gone. Missing. "Hey," He started. "have you seen a woman here? Short, brown hair, tan?"

Logan thought for a moment. A long moment. "I think so. Would she have come in the night?"

"Yes." Wheatley's worry began to lift off his chest.

"Well, somebody came in last night. She's probably in the infirmary."

"Can-"

"You want to see her?"

"Yes. Please." _Please god, let it be her_. He just wanted to know that she was okay. Logan led him down a gravel road, past a few houses and finally stopped at a small wooden cabin. The door was only a sheet that hung at the entrance and Logan knocked on the side of the building.

A woman came out. She was short and stocky, her hair pulled up behind her head.

"Hey Lisa," Logan started. "did somebody come in last night? A woman?" Lisa nodded.

"She's here," She hesitated a moment. "she's not doing too great though."

"Can I see her?" Wheatley blurted out before he could stop himself. Lisa nodded and slunk back behind the sheet.

()()()()()()

Her breathing was heavy and her eyes were shut, a bandage wrapped around her head. It was hard to see her, but Wheatley's heart rested easy knowing that she was in good hands. She must have woken up sometime after they stopped and ran away into the forest, trying to get away from him.

He should leave. He should get out of this town as fast as he can and let her be. If she wanted to flee him so badly then he had no right not to give that to her. He would leave in the morning and she would have never known that he was here. He would go back to the city and let the scientists poke and prod at him, they could tear him apart if they wanted. It didn't really matter to him. If he could die knowing she was safe then that was good enough for him. He wished he could cry.

With one last look, he left the room. Lisa and Logan stood propped against the walls. Logan looked up at him.

"Everything all good?" He asked.

Wheatley nodded, "Yeah. All good." He tried his hardest to still his voice.

()()()()()()

Logan showed Wheatley around and was only asked twice if he could take his parts. Wheatley was tempted to just give himself up to them, but Logan didn't let him.

By the time they arrived at Logan's house, the sun was already on its way down. The way it shown through the trees, split by leaves and branches, was unlike anything the android had ever seen before. He had seen the sunrise over the earth itself, looking at it from the moon. But nothing like this. He wanted to soak in the sight, but Logan tugged his attention into a different direction.

"Welcome!" Logan bellowed as he pulled Wheatley inside. The house was small, but it looked like it was a home. Warm and hospitable, the complete opposite of everything else he had ever known. He almost didn't want to enter, it seemed too sacred. But Logan pushed him in enthusiastically.

()()()()()()

Wheatley didn't sleep. He could if he wanted to, but he didn't. There was too much going on in his head. Now that it was quiet, his thoughts and memories got their chance in the limelight, shaking and rattling him. It was terrible because they seemed to be brighter whenever he closed his eyes. But in spite of everything, in spite of all of these terrible thoughts, he was thankful. He was thankful to be somewhere safe with somebody who didn't care about what he did or didn't in the past. He knew that the _others_ would never have let him stay with them. They would kill him in his sleep. But before he left, he needed to talk to them. He didn't know what he would say, but he had to come up with something. Something potent enough to get through to them. He wasn't good at stuff like that.

But as the crickets chirped outside and the moon shone silver through the window, not a lot seemed to matter. And, for just a small moment, so fleeting that it's almost as if it never happened, he felt at peace.


	6. Cosa Facciamo Adesso

She woke up, dazed and weary, but not surprised. Nothing seemed to be able to surprise her anymore. It was quiet in here save for the chatter of birds she could hear through the walls and the tinny buzz of voices in conversation somewhere off in the distance. She wanted to revel in the peacefulness of this place before it would inevitably be taken from her, just like everything else that she thought was nice. So she laid there, staring up at the ceiling and following the patterns in the wood to distract herself from the throbbing pain in her head.

It didn't last for long. After a while, the fact that she had absolutely no idea where she was and how she got here sunk in. She almost considered getting up and exploring but as she tried to move out of her bed, her limbs were like weights. Her body was so fatigued that she figured it would just be better to stay wherever she was. _Just rest_ , she told herself. _Let yourself rest._

"Hey there," A pleasant voice rung from somewhere beside her. Her head was too heavy to move. A woman came into view and sat at the edge of her bed. "Good to see that you're awake." She smiled, kind and well practiced.

Chell's voice seemed to be sunk into her throat. "Where-" she coughed a moment. "Where am I?"

The woman thought for a few seconds, then frowned. "I guess nobody ever gave this place a name." She stood and shuffled to the back of the room and opened a cupboard. "You're in an encampment about three miles away from the city." She returned with a roll of gauze and sat back down. "I'm Lisa."

"Hi, Lisa," Chell said. Without warning, Lisa leaned in and started unwrapping a bandage tied tightly around Chell's forehead. When she pulled away, Chell could see dried blood staining the white fabric.

"You'd better heal up fast, girlie. We're almost out of gauze." Lisa said, reaching behind Chell's head to wrap a clean bandage around it. She smelled like the woods and antiseptic and Chell didn't know if it was comforting or not. But she let the woman tend to her because she seemed nice enough.

"You caused quite a stir when you shambled in here the other night like a zombie. It freaked some of us out." She pulled away and looked Chell directly in her eyes. "What's your name?"

"Chell." She choked. Lisa smiled again, that same completely genuine smile.

"Hi, Chell. I'm happy to take care of you as long as I have the supplies." Her smile seemed to falter as she thought a moment. "There is somebody here who knows you. He came in and saw you last night."

 _Oh god._ Chell stiffened. "The robot?" Was all she asked. Lisa nodded. Chell groaned.

"You're not a fan of him?"

"No."

Lisa hummed. "There are some others here, too. Robots. Apparently, they knew him." Chell furrowed her brows. There were other robots that knew him? Could they have been the other cores at Aperture? Why would they be here?

"But that's neither here nor there," Lisa chimed suddenly. "I'll be right back, okay? We have a lot to discuss."

()()()()()()()

The people here had to be maniacs. Wheatley couldn't find another explanation for it when 15 people stormed Logan's porch at the bright and young hours of the morning. They knocked and knocked until they shook the house so much that Logan woke up and yelled at all of them to go away.

"I told you they'd come for you." He said, sitting down at the end of the couch with Wheatley on the other side of him. "They don't care that you're sentient or anything, they want to sell your body for money. They did it once to one of the others, but I stopped them before they could destroy the rest of them."

Sentient was a funny word to Wheatley. There was no way of knowing if a machine had feelings, in truth. They could be faking it. Sometimes he thought he was faking it but something in his head told him that he wasn't. Why give a machine the ability to feel? It seemed cruel. That was about as philosophical as he got or cared to get.

"Are you like," Wheatley racked his brain for the word. "the mayor or something?"

Logan chuckled. "No, not at all. I help the town out a bit, but I'm nothing near mayoral status. Hey!" He nudged Wheatley hard in his arm. "Speaking of doing stuff for the town, I have to go hunting today. You should come with."

"Oh Lord, why?" Wheatley was taken aback by the offer. What made Logan think that he wanted to go _hunting_ with him?

"Well I'm assuming that you'll be here a while, and if that's the case then you gotta toughen up."

()()()()()()

The animals that were Logan's target were unlike anything Wheatley had ever seen before. They weren't animals, he figured. They were monsters. Logan didn't seem to be phased by the creatures, but the sight of them made Wheatley's skin crawl.

It took two shots to get the first one down and it let out a terrible moan as it hit the ground. As Logan and Wheatley stood over the corpse, it took everything Wheatley had in him not to run as far away from it as he could. It had antlers, like a deer, but they jutted out in all different directions from the creature's skull. It smelled rotten already and its light brown, hairless body looked infected with some kind of disease.

"It's ugly, yeah," Logan said as he pulled the animal up by its horns. "But you can eat it and that's all that matters."

"You can eat cockroaches too, but that doesn't mean that you should," Wheatley remarked with disgust as he held the collar of his coat over his nose to block that wretched stench. Logan started back down the game trail with the monster in tow. Maybe if he hadn't been underground or orbiting the moon his entire life he would have seen what happened to these things. He wasn't even sure that Logan knew. But he didn't seem to be worried, which offered Wheatley no comfort.

It almost made him a little sad to know that Logan was expecting him to stay in town. He was a kind man and it nearly broke Wheatley's heart knowing that he had to leave him. _Nearly_. There had to be people looking for him. Important people that likely had a lot of guns and a lot of power. He didn't want Logan to be caught up in all of this. He just had to find the right time to tell him that he was leaving.

 _Why not now?_ His stupid, dumb brain thought. "Logan," he started, slightly winded from walking in the chilling air. "I can't stay here, you know that right? I… it's-"

"It's a long story?" Logan finished. He stopped, letting the creature fall down to his side. "I figured that you'd tell me that you had to leave."

He struggled to find the right words as he watched Logan's eyes flit across Wheatley's face. But a sharp _pang_ somewhere off in the distance took every word he wanted to say out of his mouth. Gunshots. Then the sound of an engine revving. Logan looked to his left, the direction of the town.

"Shit," He said under his breath. He settled his rifle in his hands and made a beeline down the hill.

()()()()()()

Chell awoke to the sound of gunshots sounding outside of the infirmary. The pain medication that Lisa gave her for her head knocked her out cold for a few hours, and when she was jarred awake the world around her was foggy and twisted. People were yelling and another shot right outside the building rudely pushed her right back into the land of the living. Lisa was shouting orders in the hallway and Chell climbed out of her bed, stumbling over her feet as she made her way to the door. Lisa caught her right before she fell.

"Jeez, you have a death wish!" Lisa exclaimed as she steadied the other woman.

Chell shook herself, trying to focus. "What's happening? I heard gunshots."

"Yeah, you definitely did. Some people just rolled through and started attacking us. They look important, but I have no idea how they would even know that this place even existed." But Chell knew. She knew whose fault this was. Wheatley escaped from the authorities who no doubt were keeping a watchful eye on him. They must have tracked him here. He seemed to bring misfortune everywhere he went.

"We should probably leave then." Chell pressed, but Lisa shook her head.

"I can't. I'm one of the only nurses here. I have to help the injured." Chell wanted to yell at her, but she held herself back. She was tempted to just leave on her own, but she couldn't fool herself. There was no way she could survive out in that wasteland alone. So she stayed put, much to her dismay.

"Lisa!" A man called, rushing into the infirmary with another man following behind him. One of them was a face she didn't know, but the other was one she all too familiar with. She assumed that the moment she saw him that she would want to tear him apart. But she stayed put because she had other things that she needed to worry about. Wheatley looked at her, then averted his eyes to the floor.

"Lisa, it's a mess out there. What is going on?" The other man said.

Chell, without hesitating, said, "It's his fault." She pointed directly at Wheatley. His eyes snapped to hers.

"You don't know that." He said.

"Yes, I do. They're here for you."

The other man turned to look at Wheatley. "What is she talking about?"

"I- I don't know. I don't know." He stammered. Chell wanted to argue with him, but she kept her mouth shut. The world was tired of their feud.

"I'm Logan." The man said to Chell.

"I'm Chell."

"Great. We need to get the hell out of here."

But Lisa, once again, protested. "I can't, Logan. You know I can't. And you can't either. You have to defend your people and your machines."

"Shit, I forgot about them." Logan slapped his forehead. "We need to get them here, because if what Chell said about this being his fault then they'll kill the ones that aren't him. And I can't let that happen."

He turned on his heel, but Lisa grabbed his shoulder. "Logan, they're machines. You're going to risk your life for them?"

Something flashed across Logan's face that nobody in the room could place. Then, he shook her off, grabbed Wheatley by the wrist and stormed out into the fray.

()()()()()()

Nobody seemed to be dying. The assailants seemed to just be firing shots to intimidate the townspeople. Some of them were out in the woods and the others were prowling around the town in search of something. Wheatley wasn't exactly sure why they wanted to find him so badly. He was just a robot. Just a regular guy. But they seemed determined to catch him. _They_. Who were _they_ , even? The government? The CIA? The FBI? What was even the difference between those? Who cares, the point is that some group wanted him. If he just gave himself up to them it would make this a lot easier but Logan would say something like 'over my dead body'.

When they reached the other androids, the worst case scenario seemed to already be happening. Three people, three humans had the robots in a line on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs and where there were four now stood only two. Something wicked came from Logan's throat, like a growl and a scream and he charged forward. He fired three shots and three bodies hit the ground.

"Wheatley, get over here!" Logan called and Wheatley, who was tucked behind a house, bared himself to the other robots. "Help me get them loose." It was the first time that he got a good look at the cores. One of them he didn't recognize at all, but the other one… Looking at him sent some kind of electrical pang through his body. He didn't know his name but he knew his energy and he felt the sting of his green eyes as he took Logan's knife and cut the zip ties. The core rose to his feet and stood next to the other one, who looked up at him with concern in his eyes.

"Rick, don't…" he said, wrapping his arm around the other man's bicep. _Rick_. The name made a panic rise in Wheatley's chest. He didn't want to think about how he knew him. But there Rick stood, like an immovable wall of strength and anger that wanted nothing but to destroy Wheatley.

"Shit…" Logan muttered as he looked at the bodies of the other two cores. Both were dead with a gunshot to the head. He then looked at Wheatley, Rick, and the other core. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." The smaller android said. He left Rick's side and tried to comfort Logan, but Rick stayed put.

He finally spoke, in a voice that was like sandpaper in Wheatley's ears. "I have a lot to say to you, Wheatley."

He wanted to say something in return but it was as though all of the air was sucked out of him and the world went quiet. Something pricked on his right side then bled out into a raw and angry pain. He looked down and finally the world became loud again with the yells of Logan and the cores. He heard another voice from behind him, swearing and fumbling over their words. He touched his side, feeling the hole where a bullet tore through him. And before Logan could catch him, Wheatley fell to the ground.

 **A.N.: I apologize that a lot of this has been about Wheatley. That will not be the case for the rest of the story I promise because he's really annoying. Also, I feel pretty good about this so far. The setting and plot have changed a little bit so far and a lot of things I've written here are the things I wanted to write in the original but wasn't competent enough to do it. It's intense right now but things will get better for the gang eventually. Thank you for reading!**


	7. La Loro Parte di Esso

Wheatley, in the moments when his motors whirred so fast that they were hot; when his body tried to repair itself fast enough to outrun the shutdown sequences, realized that he didn't actually want to die. He thought he did and he convinced himself that it was just what had to happen; but as he laid there, the world turning fuzzy and unfocused, a creeping fear twisted up his spine and pushed its fangs into the backs of his eyes. The fear of death. He felt small, as though he was sinking into the thirsty ground like rainwater. And he felt alone. Logan was there, gripping his hand so hard that he thought it would break; yet he felt seemed to be miles away and speaking in a language that Wheatley couldn't understand. It felt utterly dreadful. He just kept his eyes fixed on Logan's, no matter how far away they felt, to distract himself from the fear the continued to boil in his stomach.

()()()()()()

They didn't know each other when they got out. They didn't know _anything_ when they got out. When everything had ended and the smoke cleared, _She_ purged everything that she had no use for. Anything that didn't benefit her or her goals was discarded in a thousand different ways. One of those ways was throwing things onto the surface just to see what would happen to them. She put the cores out on purpose. Partly because she didn't need them anymore- in her opinion she never needed them in the first place- and partly because she pitied them. She thought they were like birds in a cage, wanting to fly free. When they reached the surface they highly disagreed, but it was hard to change her mind. Ten total. The only ten that weren't destroyed after _He_ blew up an incredible portion of the only place they had ever known.

Five of them died within the first two weeks. Some of them shut themselves down, others were mauled by wild animals or kidnapped by scavengers looking for parts to sell. The other five only survived because they could run fast enough and could hide well enough to avoid the same fate. It never got any easier, but they stayed as close to each other as they could. They gave each other names, besides Rick who had rested on that name years ago because he thought it gave him an edge. Tiger- because he had yellow eyes (it was Rick's idea to call him that). Connie- because she knew an employee named Connie 200 years ago- but nobody can really be sure how long they've been alive. Dave- it was simple; not David, just Dave. And Ryan- for no other reason other than he liked how it sounded.

They were all victims of what happened in some way or another. Whether they were directly involved or not, they all had a story to tell. At first, nobody believed Rick's part in it all. They thought he was lying when he told them that he was pinned with the human woman against the villain. Against his will, but still, he was there. He saw what happened with his own two eyes, he felt the fires, the adrenaline. Nobody was convinced. Except for Tiger.

Rick spoke of those moments with vigor. It excited him so much to go back and see those moments replay in his head. But Rick is not the smartest. He'll say he is but it's not really the truth. The other five always wondered why he would speak so highly of such an insidious event that tore their homes and their lives apart. It was in his coding to love the thrill of danger and none of them could wrap their heads around it. And he believed that it was the highest point of his life, until about two months later.

"Rick," Connie started one night. Their situation was complicated. They moved from town to town, hotel to hotel with whatever money they could steal. "what you're saying doesn't make any sense." They had gotten into a fight. Rick was going on one of his tirades again. He did this now and again, saying things like how much he missed of the action and that the rest of them didn't understand because they weren't there. Dave and Ryan, thankfully for them, had to rent out another room because the manager only allowed three people per room.

"No, it definitely does make sense." Rick barked, glaring at Connie from across the room. "It was incredible. And I felt great."

Connie glared back just as intensely. "You're in denial."

"About what, exactly? About how it was the best time of my life? Because I am not denying that."

"You're in denial about how _She_ and the human used you and the others for their own gain." Connie didn't want to say it, but enough was enough. She couldn't let him go on like this anymore.

But Tiger, who sat on the floor next to Rick, met Connie's eyes. "Don't, Connie. Don't say stuff like that."

"I'm not just _saying stuff_. It's the truth. And then they left you behind to die." She could feel herself growing bitter.

"Take that back." Rick stiffened. Tiger could hear the other man's motors whirr faster.

"No. I'm not taking it back. You're delusional and obviously can't see what really happened."

Rick seemed preoccupied. "You don't understand. You weren't there."

"Jesus, Rick! I didn't have to see the surface of the damned moon to know what happened!" She took a breath and composed herself a moment. "All of us were affected. Wheatley destroyed almost everything. GLaDOS doesn't give a shit about us."

"They didn't leave me to die." Rick 's voice wavered. "And She does give a shit about us because she got rid of him to save us."

"Maybe she did, but it didn't matter because she just threw us out here to suffer for her own enjoyment anyway." Connie couldn't help but think about it. Talking about it made her feel even worse. And she could tell by the way his eyes were latched onto the carpet like a lifeline, that it was finally getting to Rick too.

Tiger leaned closer to Rick, looking back to see Connie deflate. It seemed like every single thought he could ever think was going through his head. It was hard to watch him begin to call into question a story he knew so well. Perhaps he held onto it for comfort, to distract himself from the horror of it. Perhaps he really was in denial.

Rick stood, and without a word, walked out of the hotel into the rainy street.

"She has no idea what she's talking about," He said to himself, tucking his hands in pockets and watching his breath in the cold air. But something in his head kept buzzing. He shook himself but it didn't stop. _She's right,_ he could hear behind the drone. _She's absolutely correct._

"She's-" He choked. Behind his eyes, he could see it all play out. GLaDOS tells Rick to copy his coding into the mainframe of the facility. She tells the idiot who thinks he's smart and the one who doesn't shut up about space to do the exact same. She never speaks to them again after that. The human doesn't say a word either. And while his back was turned, the air was sucked out of the room and he was being thrown in a different direction. Nothing. They didn't do a thing to help the three cores, now suddenly only two. Not a hand to lift them from the ground, not a question if they were okay. Rick remembers being in pain.

"She's lying." he finally got the words out but they felt wrong. He hears the door open.

"Rick?" Tiger's voice is low, careful. "Do you want to talk?" Rick doesn't respond. Tiger was always the one to check in on people. He checked on Rick a lot.

Rick can feel his internal workings running ten times as fast as they should be. His hands shake as he runs them through his hair to try to calm himself. He knows Tiger can see it.

Before Rick can put his hand back into his pocket, Tiger grabs it. He holds it for a moment, eyes cast to the sidewalk. "I'm sorry," is all he says.

 **A.N.: This chapter is a little short. I actually went back and replayed Portal 2 (because I hadn't played it since like… 2015) and I forgot how much I loved uuhh everything about it. Anyway, the next chapters will be longer! Thank you for reading!**


End file.
